The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (97 page)

If he should move northward, I would follow him closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our seizing his communications and move toward Richmond, I would press closely to him, fight him if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. I say “try”; if we never try, we shall never succeed. If he makes a stand at Winchester, moving neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the idea that if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far
away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond.…

For a great part of the way you would be practically between the enemy and both Washington and Richmond, enabling us to spare you the greatest number of troops from here. When at length running for Richmond ahead of him enables him to move this way, if he does so, turn and attack him in rear. But I think he should be engaged long before such point is reached. It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it. This letter is in no sense an order.

McClellan did not take Lincoln’s suggestion that he march against Lee. Instead he kept complaining to the military authorities that he did not have enough horses for his men and that those he did have were in bad condition. For the first time in his dealings with McClellan, Lincoln loses his patience and sends him this sharply worded telegram
.

War Department, Washington City, October 24, 1862

M
AJOR
-G
ENERAL
McC
LELLAN
: I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?

Almost immediately Lincoln regretted his display of impatience toward McClellan. He communicates with him again, using more tactful words. Nevertheless, he had made up his mind that if
McClellan permitted Lee to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains and reach central Virginia, he would remove him from his command
.

Executive Mansion, Washington, October 27, 1862

M
AJOR
-G
ENERAL
McC
LELLAN
: Yours of yesterday received. Most certainly I intend no injustice to any, and if I have done any I deeply regret it. To be told, after more than five weeks’ total inaction of the army, and during which period we sent to the army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to 7,918, that the cavalry horses were too much fatigued to move, presents a very cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the future, and it may have forced something of impatience in my dispatch. If not recruited and rested then, when could they ever be? I suppose the river is rising, and I am glad to believe you are crossing.

Lee crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Lincoln kept his promise with himself. This order terminates McClellan’s career as a leading commander in the Union Army
.

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 5, 1862

B
Y DIRECTION
of the President, it is ordered that Major-General McClellan be relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and that Major-General Burnside take the command of that army. Also that Major-General Hunter take command of the corps in said army which is now commanded by General Burnside. That Major-General Fitz-John Porter be relieved from command of the corps he now commands in said army, and that Major-General Hooker take command of said corps.…

Carl Schurz was one of the many Germans who had been forced to leave his native land after the Revolution of 1848. He had played a leading part in bringing the German population into the Republican party ever since it had been founded. Lincoln had appointed him Minister to Spain, but he had resigned in December, 1861, to become a brigadier general in a volunteer corps. Lincoln writes to him to discuss the local and state elections which had gone against the Republicans. He also speaks frankly about the part played by the loyal Democrats during the War.

(
Private and confidential
)

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 10, 1862

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 8th was, today, read to me by Mrs. S[churz]. We have lost the elections; and it is natural that each of us will believe, and say, it has been because his peculiar views was not made sufficiently prominent. I think I know what it was, but I may be mistaken. Three main causes told the whole story. 1. The Democrats were left in a majority by our friends going to the war. 2. The Democrats observed this and determined to re-instate themselves in power, and 3. Our newspapers, by vilifying and disparaging the administration, furnished them all the weapons to do it with. Certainly, the ill-success of the war had much to do with this.…

The plain facts, as they appear to me, are these: The administration came into power, very largely in a minority of the popular vote. Notwithstanding this, it distributed to its party friends as nearly all the civil patronage as any administration ever did. The war came. The administration could not even start in this, without assistance outside of its party. It was mere nonsense to suppose a minority could put down a majority in
rebellion. Mr. Schurz (now Gen. Schurz) was about here then and I do not recollect that he then considered all who were not Republicans, were enemies of the government, and that none of them must be appointed to military positions. He will correct me if I am mistaken. It so happened that very few of our friends had a military education or were of the profession of arms. It would have been a question whether the war should be conducted on military knowledge, or on political affinity, only that our own friends (I think Mr. Schurz included) seemed to think that such a question was inadmissible. Accordingly I have scarcely appointed a Democrat to a command, who was not urged by many Republicans and opposed by none. It was so as to McClellan. He was first brought forward by the Republican Governor of Ohio, and claimed, and contended for at the same time by the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania. I received recommendations from the Republican delegations in Congress, and I believe every one of them recommended a majority of Democrats. But, after all many Republicans were appointed; and I mean no disparagement to them when I say I do not see that their superiority of success has been so marked as to throw great suspicion on the good faith of those who are not Republicans.

Most of Lincoln’s correspondence during the War period is coolly objective, nearly always impersonal and often official in tone. His letters to Carl Schurz take on an intimate quality seldom seen in his writing at this time
.

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 24, 1862

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: I have just received and read your letter of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the administration is failing because the war is unsuccessful,
and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if the war fails, the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have “heart in it.” Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of “heart in it”? If I must discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others—not even yourself. For be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have “heart in it” that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan; but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to relieve those fears.

I do not clearly see the prospect of any more rapid movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our case rather than in particular generals. I wish to disparage no one—certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary.…

In answer to your question, “Has it not been publicly stated in the newspapers, and apparently proved as a fact, that from the commencement of the war the enemy was continually supplied with information by some of the confidential subordinates of as important an officer as Adjutant-General Thomas?” I must say “No,” as far as my knowledge extends. And I add
that if you can give any tangible evidence upon the subject, I will thank you to come to this city and do so.

Of the four annual messages that Lincoln addressed to Congress, this one is by far the most interesting and the most inspired. It was addressed largely to the people of the border states and to the people of the South. It presents Lincoln’s favorite scheme for emancipation with compensation; it shows him making an amusing error in trying to forecast what the population of the United States would be in 1930; and it ends with one of the most moving passages in all his writings.

December 1, 1862

F
ELLOW
-C
ITIZENS OF THE
S
ENATE AND
H
OUSE OF
R
EPRESENTATIVES
: Since your last annual assembling another year of health and bountiful harvest has passed; and while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light he gives us, trusting that in his own good time and wise way all will yet be well.

*  *  *

A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.” It is of the first importance to duly consider and estimate this ever-enduring part. That portion of the earth’s surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family, and it is not well adapted for two or more. Its vast extent and its variety of climate and productions are of advantage in this age for one people, whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and
intelligence have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people.…

There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line between the free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than one-third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors’ lines, over which people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper or parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separation, if it comes, gives up on the part of the seceding section the fugitive-slave clause along with all other constitutional obligations upon the section seceded from, while I should expect no treaty stipulation would be ever made to take its place.…

Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our national homestead. There is no possible severing of this but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost.

Our strife pertains to ourselves—to the passing generations of men; and it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.

In this view I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States:

Resolved
by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of both houses concurring), That the following articles be proposed to the legislatures (or conventions) of the several States as amendments
to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles when ratified by three-fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz.:

A
RTICLE
[1]

Every state wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand and nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:

The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State bonds of the United States … for each slave shown to have been therein by the eighth census of the United States.… Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterward reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.

A
RTICLE
[2]